I had grown so suspicious of Andy’s double entente, that I looked at him keenly, to see if there was any fresh joke on; but his face was immovably grave, and he was seemingly intent on the steel tape which he was holding.
I proceeded up the mountain. It was a very pleasant one to climb, or rather to ascend, for it was nearly all covered with grass. Here and there, on the lower half, were clumps of stunted trees, all warped eastwards by the prevailing westerly wind—alders, mountain-ash, and thorn. Higher up these disappeared, but there was still a pleasant sprinkling of hedgerows. As the verdure grew on the south side higher than on the north or west, I followed it and drew near the top. As I got closer, I heard some one singing. “By Jove,” said I to myself, “the women of this country have sweet voices!”—indeed, this was by no means the first time I had noticed the fact. I listened, and as I drew nearer to the top of the hill, I took care not to make any noise which might disturb the singer. It was an odd sensation to stand in the shadow of the hill-top, on that September day, and listen to Ave Maria sung by the unknown voice of an unseen singer. I made a feeble joke all to myself:—
“My experience of the girls of the West is that of vox et præterea nihil.”
There was an infinity of pathos in the voice—some sweet, sad yearning, as though the earthly spirit was singing with an unearthly voice—and the idea came on me with a sense of conviction that some deep unhappiness underlay that appeal to the Mother of Sorrows. I listened, and somehow felt guilty. It almost seemed that I was profaning some shrine of womanhood, and I took myself to task severely in something of the following strain:—
“That poor girl has come to this hill top for solitude. She thinks she is alone with Nature and Nature’s God, and pours forth her soul freely; and you, wretched, tainted man, break in on the sanctity of her solitude—of her prayer. For shame! for shame!”
Then—men are all hypocrites!—I stole guiltily forward to gain a peep at the singer who thus communed with Nature and Nature’s God, and the sanctity of whose solitude and prayer I was violating.
A tuft of heath grew just at the top; behind this I crouched, and parting its luxuriance looked through.
For my pains I only saw a back, and that back presented in the most ungainly way of which graceful woman is capable. She was seated on the ground, not even raised upon a stone. Her knees were raised to the level of her shoulders, and her outstretched arms confined her legs below the knees—she was, in fact, in much the same attitude as boys are at games of cock-fighting. And yet there was something very touching in the attitude—something of self-oblivion so complete that I felt a renewed feeling of guiltiness as an intruder.—Whether her reasons be æsthetic, moral, educational, or disciplinary, no self-respecting woman ever sits in such a manner when a man is by.
The song died away, and then there was a gulp and a low suppressed moan. Her head drooped between her knees, her shoulders shook, and I could see that she was weeping. I wished to get away, but for a few moments I was afraid to stir lest she should hear me. The solitude, now that the vibration of her song had died out of the air, seemed oppressive. In those few seconds a new mood seemed to come over her. She suddenly abandoned her dejected position, and, with the grace and agility of a young fawn, leaped to her feet. I could see that she was tall and exquisitely built, on the slim side—what the French call svelte. With a grace and pathos which were beyond expression she stretched forth her arms towards the sea, as to something that she loved, and then, letting them fall by her side, remained in a kind of waking dream.
I slipped away, and when I was well out of sight, ran down the hill about a hundred yards, and then commenced the re-ascent, making a fair proportion of noise as I came—now striking at the weeds with my heavy stick, now whistling, and again humming a popular air.